Tuesday, September 22, 2015

A New Season

Ah yes, it is the
political season again… well, sort of.It is always the political season but in America we actually pay more attention
at certain times than others.Strangely
we ignore the subject as much as we can in “off-season” mid-term
elections.The negative ads, designed to
discourage voters from voting at all, have the effect of inoculating us against
the scourge of voting.

In any event, the Republicans have trotted
out the immense slate of potential candidates and has begun its flavor-of-the-month
process of vilifying each in turn.The
Churchy people on the Right have made a religion of hate and destruction on
social issues.The Small Government
righties have a No-More-Government mantra.The deceivers on the Right are sliming everyone in sight and the heart
of the GOtP party are very busy spinning tweaks and lies on every day events so
that all the oxygen is depleted for each news cycle.

Of course the
news media is no longer the trusted Fourth Estate it once was.It has been corporatized and compromised to the
point of spewing what its 1% owners want you to hear.Watching ABC, for instance, gets you all the
update on what the Disney conglomeration wants you to hear about what they are
doing.Fox (so-called) News bends the
facts to the breaking and unrecognizable point while pushing you toward
Right-wing ideology.NBC is dismantling
any Left-wing stories and shifting to a Right-wing twist.CBS, CNN and others are taking on the
non-story and promoting the art of Not-News.

On the Left the Democrats
are trying to act as if Hillary Clinton is the only story while she falls
further in the polls.Since they have,
thus far, kept the debates at bay and the name recognition for others in the
race a secret it appears that Hillary wants an automatic no controversy path to
the nomination.The best voice for the
people, Bernie Sanders, is drawing huge crowds and climbs in any poll where his
name is actually mentioned.Chaffey and
O’Malley are there but without a way to attract the national media to tell
their stories it is assumed that they do not exist at all.

What is most fun,
for me, anyway, is the meme war on Facebook.The cartons and the complete nonsense that passes for political
discourse these days is an added bonus.I have often said in posts of various sorts and in questions trying to point
out bad logic that “If you repeat a lie doesn’t that make you a liar as well?”It falls on deaf ears but at least it is out
there for those of us to see that lying has become a sort of political reality
all its own today.

Having gone to a
Bernie Sanders rally and listened to him for quite a while on the radio I have
come to understand that his brand of political revolution is one I can relate
to.The founding fathers would
appreciate that we need a periodic shake up.America is, finally, coming to a momentary awakening and should provide
that shake up this political season.When the Democratic debates get started Bernie Sanders will have access
to the microphone and the process should show what America actually believes as
opposed to what the 1% want us to believe.Appointing a “Blue Ribbon” panel is what punditry is about… it’s is a
way to distract you from the facts.It
is a way to push you in a direction you can feel is wrong but the arguments are
so convoluted you often can’t quite put your finger on what is wrong about
them.Senator Sanders steps to the
microphone and you hear the unfiltered, unvarnished facts.It is disturbing.It is awakening.It is a breath of fresh air.